DIY - Maine Moose

Every hunter I know has a species or a hunt that they dream of. Be it a mature whitetail, a Dall’s sheep hunt out of a backpack, or a spot-and-stalk bear hunt in Alaska, it’s the hunt that when someone asks, “If money and time weren’t an issue, what hunt would you do?”

The reason I started this series was threefold: first, to show people those dream hunts aren't as unattainable as they may appear on the surface; second, to encourage hunters to daydream about far-off destinations; third, stay committed to conservation to ensure the opportunity continues for not only us but for future generations.

From a young age, my dream hunt was for a moose. In 2008, my temporary job situation within the fisheries and wildlife management world stabilized when I was hired by the Boone and Crockett Club. It was then that I began setting aside money for applications to all states with moose hunts that were affordable to me.

As I reviewed entries of magnificent bull moose from Canada, Alaska, Maine, and the Rocky Mountain states, the daydreams of a moose hunt began to take shape. The idea of a wilderness float hunt in Alaska was the ultimate dream, though the logistics and safety nets I wanted in place just never seemed to materialize. In late spring of 2015, I checked draw results for Montana, and the bonus points for moose said zero—I had drawn a tag for Shiras' moose close to our house. I scouted hard, mainly by myself. My wife and I called in a fine bull on the seventh day of the moose season. It was only the second time she had been away from our 5-month-old son. It was truly an amazing experience to be able to share with her on a dream hunt, one that I never thought would be topped.

Justin's Alaska bull from 2016, taken on a DIY float hunt.

Then came the next year.

I got a message asking if I was interested in an Alaskan moose float hunt. First, my reply was “Yes,” then “Who is this by the way?” We spent over a year planning the scheduled 20-day float. On day 14, the first bull of the trip materialized; within a few minutes, I was standing over a 60-inch Alaska moose. Again, a trip I thought could never be topped and the culmination of my hunting dreams had been realized…

Until 2018.

That is when my wife texted me that I had been “picked” (the term Maine residents used for those successful in the draw) for a northern Maine moose permit.

Maine’s lottery system for their permits is done every year during the Moose Festival held at varying locations around the state. It is a weekend event with vendors and a moose-calling contest culminating in the public draw for permits. If there was anything I could change about this hunt, it would have been being at Moose Fest to experience that part of it, but the problem with a lottery is you don’t know who will be drawn. Maine is a long way from Montana, and the odds of drawing a tag are even longer. Most residents draw one permit in a lifetime, hopefully. The names are made public, and within a few days of being drawn I began getting brochures from registered Maine guides and their outfitting services.

In addition, I got a phone call from a B&C Official Measurer who is also a guide in northern Maine. He had already booked a client that bought one of the silent auction tags available every year, but he was invaluable in his local knowledge, and he put me in contact with a friend of his who lived in the unit. At first, I was fairly baffled that people would be so accommodating to a nonresident who drew in their state, but I would soon learn this was more commonplace than rarity among the folks of Maine.

Maine is a long way from Montana, and the odds of drawing a tag are even longer.

Maine is by far the cheapest state to apply for a moose tag. A $15 application fee gets your name in the hat. More chances can be purchased by a nonresident, though the year I drew was the fewest chances I had ever purchased. It all comes down to a draw where you need to beat out roughly 100 other applicants for one of the 10 percent of moose tags allocated to non-residents. If you do get picked, the tag cost is $584. While this seems like a decent chunk of change, Montana is the next cheapest at $750, then Alaska at $800 all the way up to Wyoming and Idaho who each will ding a nonresident over $2,000 for a moose tag.

The accommodations were rustic, but the wood burning stove and propane lights of the historic camp's cabins added to the experience.

The moose hunting in Maine is truly unlike anything else I have ever experienced. A look on Maine’s moose lottery page reveals they issue 2,832 moose permits. Wildlife Management District (WMD) 1 issues 475 alone—a figure that exceeds the total number of moose permits Montana issues statewide. When you figure that Maine’s WMD 1 total area is 1,442 square miles and hunter success for that unit over the last five years has topped 80 percent, you get an idea of the moose densities.

The further south you go in the state, moose densities decrease, and therefore, success rates are generally lower. I wouldn’t recommend taking any available tag, which is an option in the draw, as some units will be very difficult to find success in. Nine of the northern units offer 100 or more tags with success varying between 66 and 95 percent. These are some great statistics, but this also means they are the most popular units for which people apply.

The season structure has three time periods. The September hunt is during the rut when calling can be very effective, but temperatures can be very warm. October is the most popular time; the weather is cooler, and foliage can be falling, allowing greater visibility. The November hunts, for the most part, are units with lower moose density and success rates vary greatly but are generally significantly lower. All the season dates and success rates are available from Maine on their website.

Be advised that folks will think it odd when you show up to the check station and the bull is in pieces—definitely legal in Maine.

Much of the land in the northern part of the state is owned by timber companies, which generally allow access. The Maine North Woods is a block of privately held timberlands. Access, including camping, is allowed through gated roads for a nominal day fee. This active timber management creates nearly ideal moose habitat; thus, contributing to the abundance. The company’s willingness to allow access to pursue these moose is one of the best examples of landowner stewardship benefitting hunters today.

For folks used to the West where research shows elk want to be at least 4 miles from the nearest road to feel safe, the access in Maine will seem overabundant as logging roads seem to be nearly everywhere. Interestingly this access allows many folks the ability to get their moose out whole. With my approach, I was limited in the gear I could get to Maine, but a standard pack frame along with my field processing gear—including a couple solid skinning knives, a caper, a small steel and a small folding saw—did the trick. Be advised that folks will think it odd when you show up to the check station and the bull is in pieces—definitely legal in Maine. But when I was questioned as to why he was in pieces and I replied, “The moose I like was a ways from the road.” The reply I got was, “Well, I woulda’ found a different moose!”

The second thing that I had never experienced was the fact that all the meat processors had been booked up since the draw results posted. Standard practice in Maine is to call a processor and reserve a time once you have a tag. I had originally planned to process the meat with the help of my buddy who came along on the hunt and split it up for the trips home, but the weather was too warm to hang the meat for an extended period. Since I was looking only for the use of a cooler, I wasn’t too worried, but after the first two or three places I called said without a reservation they had no room, I was starting to get concerned and began considering an all-night moose cutting marathon trying to get it all knocked out.

Finally, I got in contact with a processor who was willing to let me use his storage, and when I got there, again the questions regarding the moose being in pieces and already skinned out continued. Seeing that I showed up with clean quarters in game bags, he offered to process the moose for me. After a quick discussion with my hunting partner and considering we would have roughly a 30-40 minute drive each way to get pieces of meat to cut on, this turned out to be the better choice and well worth the couple hundred bucks charged.

LEFT: Justin admires his Maine bull where it fell. RIGHT: Justin taking a break on the first trip out of the brush with hindquarters and the group's rifles.

Lodging in Maine also should be secured early. A very large number of Maine residents have camps in varying regions and a VRBO search reveals many of these are available to rent very affordably with varying degrees of amenities. Also, a large number of sporting camps or lodges exist in Maine and many offer not only lodging but guiding, meat processing and meals. Depending on what type of hunt you want to do, the options are almost endless. Be sure, though, that if you do hire an outfitter, you carefully discuss how the hunt will take place. Maine law states that you cannot have a loaded firearm in the vehicle, but it is legal to shoot from the road if it isn’t “hot top” as they call it. (It took me a bit to correlate the term with asphalt or blacktop.)

Some of the outfitter brochures I received touted the number of guides and vehicles that would be looking for your moose if they were hired and even offered up the private channel radios they used as an attribute to attract your business. This is not universal to all outfitters by any means, but it is worth investigating. I personally would have been disappointed to arrive on a guided hunt to ride roads endlessly and listen to radio chatter of other guides looking for a moose on the road for me to shoot.

For my hunt, I chose to fly commercially from Montana to northern Maine since the drive time, according to Google, is 46 hours from my house. This left me with the issue of finding a vehicle to use for the hunt. While I didn’t need anything fancy, I wanted something that was big enough to haul up to a 900-pound animal and had reliable enough tires to drive the logging roads. The gravel on the roads isn’t especially sharp or large compared to some places I have been, but low-ply rental vehicle tires may have issues, if the rental agreement even allows you onto gravel roads. The idea I came up with was to put the word out that if someone was willing to let me borrow a truck that was in the northeast portion of the U.S., I would buy a brand new set of tires for them. The cost to rent a vehicle large enough for what I intended to use it for would have been nearly $1,000. I figured even then I may have to buy tires, so I was better off to just budget $1,500 to buy the best set of tires I could for the vehicle I would be using and hopefully someone would offer the use of a vehicle.

This trip still probably ranks as my all-time favorite DIY.

In this process I reached out to a friend who has a fairly major following on Facebook as he was on season 3 of “Naked and Afraid.” He lives in Florida, which is still not all that close to Maine, but it’s less than half the drive distance from Montana. As I was asking him to put out feelers for me, the wheels started turning and he mentioned that to go on a moose hunt, he may be willing to make the drive. At this point, another unique thing about Maine tags came into play: when you draw a tag, you can designate a sub-permittee who is allowed to hunt with you and legally can shoot the moose as well. The tag is only good for one moose but I told him that he was welcome to back me up and not to hesitate if I missed. And, if we couldn’t find a mature bull I was interested in during the first four days of the six-day season, I would let him be the shooter on the last two. Being one for adventure, he jumped on board right away.

Another option I looked into was buying an older used vehicle there then either sell it there online or drive it back and sell it at home. With the rental or purchase options though, there was a far higher risk than having a friend go along with you and bring his truck.

In terms of getting the meat home, I had a shipper account set up with Delta Airlines ahead of time. The meat was frozen solid when we picked it up from the processor split up between four coolers we purchased there, which strangely was far harder than I would have expected. The two Walmarts there were sold out for the season. My total cost to ship back my half of the processed moose was around $300.

Justin and Official Measurer and sub-permittee Justin Bullard with Justin's 2018 Maine bull.

This trip still probably ranks as my all-time favorite DIY. The hunting partner I selected had a great attitude, and he was absolutely amazed by some of the experiences, which were commonplace to me. The idea of frost in your bootlaces after hiking an old logging road in September or being able to walk through a patch of thigh-deep brush and not be worried about snakes was something new to him. He was stunned by cleaning a moose and putting 100-plus pound quarters on a pack. Even though I cautioned him numerous times to slow down as we had a long day ahead of us, he was grinning ear to ear through all of it and never really did take a breather.

The fact that pretty much everywhere you stop in Maine has lobster rolls on the menu isn’t a bad thing. Also, I discovered all their hotdogs are very red. Something many folks probably wouldn’t have noted, but to this gas-station-hot-dog connoisseur who plans road trips around hotdog quality on the route, I was intrigued. If you are intrigued as well, they taste just fine, especially when combined with a cheddar broccoli bite. And speaking of broccoli, it may seem a bit strange in a moose hunting story, but broccoli is grown in Maine and it turns out that moose love broccoli. So don’t overlook the broccoli fields as a potential destination, and don’t overlook the broccoli bites available in the gas stations. Most of the fun of a DIY is learning a new area and in this case a new culture.

Costs:

Moose Application and Tag: $599+

Rental of a cabin for a week: $150

No water, propane lights and cook stove, wood burning stove

Plane ticket from Montana: $500

Groceries for the week for two: $250

Moose Processing: $200-300

Flying meat home: $300+

Depending on airline and freight or baggage

Gas for the hunt: $200

Vehicle rental $1,250 Or new tires for your buddy

Total: $3,549

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